1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to the field of computer software particularly to an improved method of providing aircrew decision aids for use in determining the optimum placement of an Electronic Attack (EA) aircraft. The core of the invention is a software program that will dynamically provide the EA flight crew situational awareness regarding a threat emitter's coverage relative to the position of the EA aircraft and to the position of protected entities (PE). The software program generates information to provide visual cues representing a Jam Acceptability Region (JAR) contour and a Jam Assessment Strobe (JAS) for display via designated aircraft cockpit processors and devices. The JAR and JAS will aid the EA aircrew in assessing the effectiveness of a given jamming approach and assists in determining the optimum flight path for both the PE and EA. The optimized flight paths will minimize exposure to threat emitters allowing accomplishment of the mission.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic Warfare (EW) tactics employed by EA aircraft strive to direct electromagnetic energy into a threat radar receiver with sufficient power to prevent the threat radar receiver from accurately detecting or tracking the PE. EW includes the basic concepts of Noise Jamming and Deception Jamming. Key to the successful jamming effort is generating a signal that exceeds the expected target return signal seen by the threat receiver and concentrating the radar jamming signal in the direction of the threat receiver antenna. Barrage noise jamming floods the threat radar receiver with massive amounts of electronic emissions and significantly degrades low technology threat receiver performance. With the evolution of advanced radar concepts the noise jamming approach is less effective against high technology threat emitters. Advanced technology threat radar emitters have led to tuning the EA jamming frequency to match the frequency of the threat emitter and to follow any frequency hopping or other frequency agile characteristics the threat emitter may employ. Deception jamming requires the EA platform to generate a signal that is similar to the target return signal the threat receiving system expects while modifying target characteristics such as return signal strength, range, heading, velocity or acceleration. Overcoming multiple threat emitters employing advanced radar techniques, while transitioning a hostile area and providing protection jamming is a high workload environment for an aircrew. Cockpit display information and aircrew decision aids are required to improve situational awareness for the EA aircrew. It is an objective of this invention to reduce aircrew workload by providing decision aids.
Systems to aid the EA flight crew decision making process in positioning the jamming source carried by the EA are in need of improvement. Current aids available to EA flight crew provide text and rudimentary visual cues depicting gross EA position relative to threat receiver position. Current EA systems force the flight crew to manually incorporate current PE position relative to the position of the EA and threat receiver, then forces the aircrew to manually determine the optimum EW countermeasure to employ driving up aircrew workload. Current systems are incapable of fusing EA jamming capability with projected threat emitter performance information in order to obtain optimal geometrical positioning of the EA relative to threat emitters. The novel method of combining threat emitter system characteristics with EA aircraft capabilities while simultaneously incorporating PE position in a single display format greatly reduces EA aircrew workload and makes the EA more effective.